“He know you’re gay?”

“No.” He could feel Ben waiting. “I’ll tell him when I feel like it will make any difference. I ought not to hold so much against him but I can’t help it. The divorce really screwed my mom up. Well, what really screwed my mom up was knowing her husband left her for a guy. But she really loved him.”

“That kind of thing would fuck a person up, all right. So you never dated any girl at all?”

“Once. Right after I got my driver’s license. I mean, one time, one date. This nice girl named Phoebe. I took her to see Carnal Knowledge. I had no idea what it was. There was Jack Nicholson screwing Ann-Margret on screen. Phoebe and I were sitting there holding hands and I kept wanting to get kissed by Jack Nicholson. My hand was sweating. I drove her home and decided I didn’t care how many people called me a sissy or a fag, I wasn’t going through that.”

A moment. Passing trucks on the road, the press of wind, the heavy car shifting on its shocks. “I had sex with one guy before you.”

Ronny quiet, feeling the stillness around the words.

“That make you jealous?”

“Not unless you’ve got him in the trunk.”

Ben chuckled. “It was this kid I didn’t even know. This skinny kid on my street when I was in junior high. We did it in the shed in the back of my house.”

“What was his name?”

Ben thought about it and laughed. “God damn, I don’t remember.”

“What made you do it?”

“I could just feel him wanting me so much. I didn’t even know I was thinking about doing it till he touched me one day. Then I got hot, like, all at once, and I did it.”

“What?”

“You know. Not the first part I like but the second. The fuck and not the blowjob. You’re definitely the first guy to suck my dick.”

“I’ll write that down in my book of important accomplishments as soon as we get to your house.”

“Dickhead.”

“I sure didn’t think you were going to tell me anything like that.”

Ben shrugged, looking cocky. “Just thought you would want to know another interesting fact about me.” He set his hand on Ronny’s. “You mind the radio?”

“No.”

“I know we’ll probably keep talking anyway. You never shut up.”

“Oh, so it’s me.”

“When I have somebody else in the car I don’t say ten words. I don’t know what you do to make me talk so much.” He was smiling, though, and it appeared he liked the difference.

During the remainder of the ride, though, a long silence did come, Ronny looking out the side window while Ben kept them moving toward Turtletrack. Farm country, rolling hills, a scattering of cows in fields, dilapidated old farm buildings, neat houses set back from the road under groves of trees, followed by towns that were clusters of strip malls and vacant storefronts. The quiet contained their fullness in the presence of each other, mixed eddies of their contentment. On the surface Ronny felt peace but inside was restless, edgy, glad to be in the car alone with Ben but at the same time and without any feeling of contradiction wishing the ride were over so he could move around.